Last week, the Food & Water Watch family in New York lost one of our stalwart members, Marc Heineman.

Marc was a regular at our monthly meetings on Long Island. He was principled, passionate, and well-informed. He was an ardent progressive who loved the outdoors and cared immensely about the environment.

I personally admired Marc a lot. He was opinionated, outspoken, and eager to get his point across – all marks of a great advocate. We need more people like Marc, and his untimely passing is a tremendous loss to his family and friends, and to our organization and community.

Last week, I attended Marc's service. It was gratifying to see that the family asked people to contribute in Marc's memory to Food & Water Watch[2] and Clearwater. At the service, his daughter called Marc "a very very loud man," and his cousin described him as a "beautiful mensch" – both wonderful descriptions of a wonderful man. We will carry on the fights in his honor.